Don't let "transparency" become a pain for enterprises

In the team development activity, there is a "Island Survival" game. After the team members are divided into groups, they are arranged on isolated islands inhabited by blind, dumb and normal people. Each has a different task book. The entire team is required to complete all tasks within the specified time, as long as the task of one of the islands is not completed. , even if it fails.

Blind people can't see the task and can't start it; the dumb person understands the task, but even if he asks for help, he can't speak; and the normal person can only know the content of his task, but he doesn't know how to help the people on the other two islands to complete the work. If the people in the three isolated islands stubbornly close their information and make it opaque, information isolated islands will be formed. To stand out in the competition, whoever realizes the secret of breaking through and sharing resources first will seize the opportunity to win.

Transparency of information in enterprise management is similar to the example of survival on an isolated island.

Many Chinese enterprises, including our World Union, have grown from a small organization. At the beginning, the scale of the enterprise was small and the business was single. Decision makers could easily grasp complete information and control the operation of the enterprise. , the grass-roots managers and employees only need to follow the boss's command and work hard together.

However, the development of enterprises is an inevitable law. With the continuous expansion of scale, the operation links are gradually refined and complicated. In the face of massive information, even the most outstanding leaders are not enough. Resource coordination, integration and mutual checks and balances also put forward higher requirements for enterprise managers. In such a situation, what corporate decision makers need most is high-value information that supports management, but they often face two extremes of embarrassment.

World Union has not surpassed this inevitable stage in the development of Chinese enterprises. In fact, the World Federation has recognized the importance of informatization since its establishment, and has invested more manpower and material resources in infrastructure construction. But after more than ten years of work, I found a very difficult phenomenon. There are more than ten or twenty systems in the enterprise, and each department has its own independent system, which lacks internal unity.

For example, the customer systems in the secondary and tertiary markets are incompatible, the GIS automatic valuation system is unique, and the financial supervision system is not integrated with these systems. World Union's newly established research and development center found in its work that it is particularly difficult to dig deep information in the hope of extracting comprehensive judgments from these systems. In the end, I had to start all over again and devote myself to the construction of an integrated information system, in order to sort out the chaotic information and make it transparent, so as to serve the enterprise management.

Three Benefits of Information Transparency

What kind of benefits can "transparency" bring to enterprises? There are about the following three aspects:

Increase foresight, improve collaboration ability What is foresight? In fact, it is because we have mastered a large amount of information in advance and fully filter it before we can make amazing predictions and judgments; and the only thing that is limited in hindsight is the availability of information.

For example, we signed a sales agency contract, which stipulates when the market will open, and this information should be known to the relevant departments as soon as possible. Otherwise, when the opening of the market is imminent, the human resources department suddenly asks for people, and the administration department asks for things, and these cooperative departments cannot prepare in advance. Without prior notice, how many people are needed for the project opening, what are the specific requirements for these people, what materials are needed on the project site, etc., why should the collaboration department prepare in advance? Therefore, the predictability of the work actually comes from the direct market information and the transparency of the basic business performance. Only on this basis can there be harmony and efficiency between departments.

Laying the foundation for standardization and processization We emphasize strengthening management, but everyone has different management ideas. In the environment where information is not integrated, all departments of the enterprise form only closed processes and standards, which cannot be systematized . When the company is small, these things are insignificant, and when the company expands, the small things become the big things that restrict the development of the company.

For a seemingly trivial example, working hours. The time itinerary of enterprise management personnel is transparent online, and the work is naturally convenient to arrange. International companies do this well. If you make an appointment with an international company, the other party will not reply immediately. Generally, check the timetable before confirming. The schedules of managers such as presidents and business managers were arranged as early as six months ago, and many of the appointments were made six months ago, which has formed a work habit. And we usually make an appointment only when we have something to do, and then forget it after the appointment, so the work is naturally limited.

As a member of the company, you must first be understood at work before you can receive corresponding support and cooperation. Known by whom? What information needs to be known? First of all, the key element is to be understood by your superiors, what abilities you have, and what ideas and plans you have for specific work. Only after the superiors are clear can you be fully authorized to do them; secondly, the schedule and plans for things must be known to the subordinates. Otherwise, it will affect the efficiency and delay the work; thirdly, keep the habit of exchanging information with the collaborators.

It is not difficult to see from this that information transparency is the basis for process-oriented and standardized work. If you repeatedly emphasize individuality, it will inevitably fail to be transparent. The integrated system is promoted in accordance with the conventional and standardized process, while each department rests on its own laurels and ignores other systems, which results in the coexistence of several small systems.

A more important aspect of information transparency to avoid business risks is external. Why did the World Federation announce its results this year? First, let the market know more about World Union; second, it reflects the company's full confidence. It's good for companies to be the first to be transparent, especially for specialist technology companies like ours.

Transparency to the outside world is a gesture of sincerity to the media. The status of the enterprise has been made clear to everyone through transparency, and the grass and trees will not be swept away by any information that comes out in private. Traditionally, companies have done minimal and inadequate risk communication to the outside world. However, proper and continuous risk communication will not only reduce the stress of the business, but also reduce the fear of the surrounding environment about the nature and likelihood of the risks involved.

The battle between kings and ten thousand is the best example. Junan came up with the idea of exchanging shares of Vanke and taking over Vanke. Vanke can remain invincible in this fierce conflict, because information transparency plays a decisive role. Because Vanke is a listed company with fully transparent information, the market has already made a fair judgment on it. From the perspective of historical development, the dispute between Jun Wanke is a good thing for Vanke, and after this incident, it has also promoted Vanke to accelerate its reform.

Also, when syringes were found in Pepsi's soft drink cans, people didn't pursue production too much, thanks to the company's communication strategy to quickly demonstrate the production process to the public to let the public know that these foreign objects could only be put in by the purchaser loopholes, the noise was quelled. Johnson & Johnson, however, was far from being so fortunate. Although it repeatedly stated to the public that Tylenol capsules were the cause of deaths due to buyers returning cyanide to the market after dosing, the lagging publicity escalated the process to the point where the production process had to be radically changed. , paid a high price.

As can be seen from these examples, well-known international companies are not born perfect, they have also experienced painful lessons and transformations. Through the transparency of information to the outside world, the market can understand the enterprise, which not only reduces the cost of enterprise management crisis caused by market unforeseen events, but also obtains real market feedback, makes real self-judgment, and is more predictable for the future development of the enterprise. .

"Blind and transparent" is more terrible than "opaque"

From the implementation of meaning to the implementation level, transparency is a thing full of wisdom. It can even be said that "blind transparency" is more terrible than "opaque".

One of the "blind transparency": regardless of company security, everything is transparent. Corporate information is diverse, and it must be strictly differentiated whether it is open or not. The misunderstanding of transparency is that everything is transparent. Lai Changhua, a certified risk manager, just returned from abroad. We asked him about the transparency of information abroad. He repeatedly emphasized that business secrets are absolutely opaque.

The benchmark for transparency is listed companies, and listed companies also have clear standards for external information transparency. This stems from the fact that an enterprise is a competitive entity, and any enterprise is faced with enormous competitive pressure. To gain an advantage in the competition, an enterprise must ensure the security of its key information. Such as trade secrets, talent compensation. The salaries of foreign companies are only transparent to the Federal Tax Office, and at the same time, the Federal Tax Office cannot let everyone check, especially personal income tax. When China Shipping goes public and announces the annual salary of directors, it only discloses the salary at the director level, and the salary of department managers will never be disclosed. What needs to be transparent is the salary system and the company's salary concept.

World Union is currently in the development stage and has not been listed, and there is no need to satisfy market curiosity. What enterprises need to be transparent to the market is the information related to operation, evaluation system and work flow. This is the difference between "know what" and "know how".

What do we mean by transparent information? An important measure is whether the information can assist the market operation of the enterprise. For example, customer information, regional information of the market, marketing expenses and costs of each project, per capita yield, per capita benefit use level and other basic team management information, which is the basis for us to evaluate its true value; another example is the personal performance of sales staff, through performance Information transparency stimulates the potential of sales staff, otherwise how to evaluate our sales force, how to evaluate personal ability, and how to talk about auxiliary management?

The second of "blind transparency": do not solve the problem of awareness, blindly use the system I have communicated with many companies about the work of information transparency, and they all said that by establishing an integrated system to achieve information transparency, it may be possible On the road of no return! For example, Ping An Insurance invested a lot of money without success, or the case of McKinsey's defeat of Shida, the same problems have occurred in high-tech and financial fields.

Investigate the reason, what influences and restricts the transparency of enterprise information? What are the obstacles that Chinese enterprises have to overcome in the process of development and transformation? Without a comprehensive system, it would be extremely difficult for the company to develop on a large scale! Can investing money and establishing a complete system fundamentally solve the problem? The answer is also no. In the final analysis, the internal traditional culture is to blame.

What kind of culture is holding back? Through the research and summary of the crux of the World Federation itself, we found that each department is used to using its own independently developed system in their work, and at the same time, they can find various reasons to reject the new system. As managers of intelligence-intensive enterprises, including grass-roots employees, everyone agrees with the theory of information transparency. difficult situation. No matter how much manpower and material resources are invested, the final result may be to add one more system to the existing more than 20 systems. This will inevitably make corporate decision-makers embarrassed to face sporadic data reports, busy jumping between information silos.

China's information opacity has deep roots. In traditional culture, rulers, ministers, fathers, sons, each take their place and perform their duties. At the same time, they must obey their superiors in a single way, and information must be linear and closed; even under a modern education system It is also difficult for parents to be transparent about the child's growth process. In order to give the child a suitable growth environment, they will inevitably block a lot of negative information, fearing that he will be hit and worry about life.

From this, it can be concluded that the big threshold for Chinese enterprises in the development is the significant gap in transparency culture with foreign excellent enterprises. Why do foreign companies have a traditional culture of information transparency? The root cause is that the equity of listed companies needs to be publicized for financing. Without transparent information, there will be no market credibility, and corporate stocks will naturally be ignored. At the same time, the market's well-established regulatory system complements it to ensure the authenticity of transparent information. Foreign companies have been doing this for hundreds of years.

On the other hand, companies that have not or dared not achieve information transparency must have the following commonalities in several directions: 1. Information monopoly; 2. Information is hierarchical, and the information held by high-level to low-level personnel is rapidly decreasing; 3. There is a lack of an information exchange mechanism, and information cannot be fully exchanged; 4. There is a lack of institutional supervision of information, and there is no clear requirement for transparency.

World Union has reached a stage where transparency must be pursued, and we can no longer let all kinds of "opaqueness" and "blind transparency" harm our business. Therefore, our approach is to first have transparent thinking, and then act steadily and carefully. In the implementation process, for different appeal objects, grasp the degree.

I believe that everyone will feel the benefits of information transparency more and more clearly: the information environment is smooth, the information quality is improved, the enterprise evaluation system has been gradually improved, the work of each department has become predictable, and the overall collaboration efficiency has kept up. , the management level of all employees has been improved rapidly, and the entire enterprise has developed more healthily and steadily. Of course, as the board of directors, we have the responsibility to ensure that the company abides by the laws and regulations, pays taxes according to regulations, and resists the unscrupulous industry trends in the business process, as a guarantee for the transparency of the World Union.

—This article is a contribution from the author. The author is the chairman of World Union Real Estate Consultants (China) Co., Ltd.